Stories: The Path of Destinies (PlayStation 4) Review

Defeat is usually never a good thing in a video game. Usually, it happens when things go wrong and the party ends up dead, or comes about in a predetermined boss fight, but Stories: The Path of Destinies begs to differ. A sky pirate, who is also a fox and goes by the name of Reynardo, stumbles upon a magical book. The world is currently in peril, thanks to an evil toad emperor, against whom only a desperate rebellion stands. There is hope, though, as the book Reynardo finds has the power to show him the future and the many possible outcomes his actions may have. Maybe, with just a bit of luck, he can find the one path that will lead to defeating the toad emperor once and for all.

Stories starts off quite promising. For one, the graphics, while not amazingly astounding on a technical level, are bright and lovely to look at. Even on the most basic of levels, something as small as the stark contrast between the various foes and the surrounding, often bright, world is a legitimate refresher from the oft-muted colours found in far too many a game. With the story-book style, art in the narrative sections in-between the various levels is - while not on-par with something like Sorcery - still very nice to look at. Despite what is presented probably being able to viably run on the PS2, it simply doesn't matter when it comes to light that, between the top-down perspective and focus on narrative, the graphics, while not flooring, are great.

Likewise, the combat is fairly solid and fluid. Focusing mainly on combo strings, it is quite easy to gain a solid grip on how battles are supposed to play out. With quick and rapid strikes, darting around to counter the various foes, and singling out key targets, it's a very simple, yet robust, system. Even more notable is that, while Reynaldo will get "stronger" as the game progresses, it's almost always in a lateral manner. Being able to deal more damage is simply secondary to being able to quickly move across the battlefield with counter strikes, despite it not actually make Reynaldo stronger, just providing more options.

However, all this is little more than a careful dance around the primary strength and weakness of Stories, upon which the entire review rests. This is a game about just that: stories. Reynardo is stuck in a situation that seems impossible to win. At first, he doesn't know how to at all. The only way to figure it out is to explore the many different options and find at least four (five counting the true ending) of the viable endings, so as to figure out how to defeat the toad emperor. This seems like a great mechanic, and it is. With each attempt Reynardo can potentially uncover additional clues, as well as learn new information or simply see how else things could have played out. Each of the branching paths leads to its own unique ending and there are many possibilities. As such, exploring each of the endings will lead to new outcomes no matter what.

That is the problem, however. In a truly bizarre twist, the biggest shortcoming is not some technical flaw, plot hole, unlovable character, or anything of the sort. Instead, it's that beating it requires playing through the limited selection of levels a lot in order to uncover all the possible endings. With at least 24 possible endings, each requiring playing through the few levels on offer many times, this quickly turns the fun romp into a distinct chore, since the levels never change beyond enemy numbers/variations. There are no new bosses or any bosses at all. There are no new puzzles or layouts. It's simply each level over and over and over again, until, eventually, every one of the endings has been explored.

In other words, the biggest problem the game has is not that it does things wrong, but, rather, that it does things right. In doing so, however, it turns what should have been a fun experience into a romp through dungeons that make Hyperdimension Neptunia look downright inventive in terms of variation. Sure, there are some secrets to explore and find, but not only are they not hard to find, before long, they lose all real meaning. The focus becomes not enjoying the level designs, finding secrets, or even the fighting, but hurrying through the levels as fast as possible in order to unlock the next ending.